When does one know when they are a grownup

While visiting Mom at the nursing home the other day I ran into one of my former high school teachers. I've been out of high school forty years. The teacher, I am sure, has been retired for quite some time.

Our exchange was brief and I avoided calling him by name. I didn't know whether to call him Mr. or by his first name. The lessons Mom and Dad taught about respecting our elders is forever ingrained in my physche.

But the person who was my elder when I was in high school is closer in age to me than my parents' friend and our neighbors were as I was growing up. When one thinks about it, that 15 to 20 year age difference when I was in high school was much greater than the 15 to 20 year age difference today.

A few of Mom and Dad's friends often told us we could call them by their first  names. It never flew with our parents.

"No, you will refer to them as Mr. or Mrs," Mom would say. A Mom saying "no" always trumped a friend saying "yes."

I was not so insistent on proper titles when our own children were young. Instead I insisted their friends call me by my first name. To me Mrs. McCrossin was a a little old lady who lived on the east side of the state. I am, and always have been, Phyllis. Those who were uncomfortable with calling me by my first name usually referred to me as "Momma Phyllis." It worked for me. However, young visitors  always referred to King as Mr. McCrossin. I'm guessing they have the same problem deciding what to call their former principal as I do deciding what to call a former teacher.

And I still don't know what to call a former teacher.